I'm a lapsed believer. Two years ago, I was all about Star Citizen. You would have been hard pressed to find someone more excited by the idea of a galaxy spanning rough and tumble space sim than me (well, maybe those crazy people who went out and spent $2.5K on a virtual carrier were more excited than me, but they're out of their damned minds).

I would love nothing more than to play a game that merges the scope and player focused political machinations of EVE with the ship to ship combat of Elite Dangerous. I want to see a big-budget, crowd-funded PC exclusive space sim succeed just to prove to publishers that there is an audience for that kind of game. Hell, I wanted it to do well if for no other reason than to read more of those goofy space-ship brochures they use to sell pre-order ships. But my enthusiasm for Star Citizen has dwindled over the past two years, to the point where I feel like a sucker for buying the entry level pack back in 2013.

The delays have been one thing. I expected delays. Even when the Dogfighting module was pushed back from the summer of 2013 to actually launching in June 2014, I was fine with that. Sure, it was irksome when the Dogfighting module finally released and turned out to be a steaming pile of glitches, but I could roll with that. What has really bothered me though, what's chipped away at my faith in the game for the past two years, has been the lack of direction the team seems to have had. How every time you turn around, Cloud Imperium Games is announcing another huge feature or gamemode it promises will be the best thing since sliced bread, despite not delivering on what has already been promised.

It's the tin ear, how they keep doubling down and going bigger while leaving backers hanging. Moves like bringing in Hollywood talent like Mark Hamill and Gary Oldman to star in the single-player Squadron 42 campaign (now slated to come out in episodic chunks rather than one cohesive story, yay). Call me a cynic, but it's hard for me not to wonder if all that backer-funded money could have been better spent on actually getting the game out the door than footing the bill for premium stars.

I was excited to see Star Citizen make an appearance at the Game Awards because I wanted them to show me something that would get me back on the team. I wanted them to wow me with something like an in-depth gameplay demonstration, or a concrete release date, or a expository clip of the single player storyline.

What we got was a trailer full of smash cuts of generic action and choppy frame rates.

I still want to believe in you Star Citizen, but you're not making it easy.

So how about you? Did you ever believe in Star Citizen, or did you think it was hogwash from the beginning and none of this surprises you at all? Did you buy in and are still excited, or do you regret it? Am I just a big grumpy baby and you thought the trailer was awesome? Let me know, I'm really curious about what other people think of Star Citizen at this point.

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